It took generations to mine that long demilitarized zone at the border, and it’s going to take a long time to totally clear it. Work is starting in the Joint Security Area (JSA), the narrowest part, near the truce village of Panmunjom.

The hope, according to those familiar with the work, is to totally demine the JSA within the next 20 days. After that, guard posts and all weapons will also be removed. This will leave the JSA with unarmed troops stationed inside.

Both sides have made several moves to lower tensions along the border over the course of 2018, as North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in have had three successful summits. Clearing the JSA of landmines, however, is the biggest move yet along the demilitarized zone.

Both leaders are seeking a peace treaty to end the Korean War, though the US has been somewhat resistant to the idea. If completed, the demilitarized zone would itself be dismantled, and the two nations would have a proper border without generations of military hardware parked along it.

It sounds so simple and should be-at last two countries with populations closely related will be free to interact peacefully. However, the USA cannot stand the idea of people doing as they wish, in peace and harmony, not under the control of the Big Brother who has so many “interests” in threats, invasions, troops, profits for weapons-makers, power play.

B.R.Myers, writing from Busan South Korea, claims that nationalism is potent in Korea (as one might expect) and that North Korea, not being influenced by the west, might have an edge in the department.

More to the point: Researchers of the peninsula will get nowhere unless they take a break from their quantifying now and then, and enter into an imaginative sympathy with Korean nationalism, the way any sensible literary scholar assumes a Christian frame of mind when reading Bunyan or Blake. Having done that one begins to understand why the North appeals strongly to an influential minority in the South. They don’t want to live up there any more than a moderate Muslim wants to live under the Taliban, but they see it as the purer Korea in many ways, the real deal. . .here

thanks for the link, Don. North Korea under the Kims has achieved an enormous amount in health, education, infrastructure when we remember its complete destruction. Dictators is an easy word to use, but the USA is far from what I would consider even resembling a democracy, so it needs to rethink its plans.

Yes, there are billions of dollars of arms sales in jeopardy; the US will certainly try to scuttle the breakout of peace, but there is only so much they can do. But don’t be surprised by anything that “happens”.

Apparently this is a joint Korean project not involving the US puppet UN Command, so that’s a good sign and maybe a portent of future progress with the Koreas side-stepping the US. The UN command made the news in August when it refused to allow a South Korean train to enter the North, reported here.